Hush, And Lie Down
by pherede
Summary: Post-TDKR, Bruce and John find a hiding-place to bandage their wounds, a place of fleeting safety.


If it weren't for Batman's gadgets, they'd have been found already; they'd be dead now, and John's back wouldn't hurt so much. Instead, they're locked into a curious siege, an invisible bubble of radio interference cast by a tiny box of nondescript plastic.

The bubble is their shelter. It would be easier if they had set it up in a smaller place, where closed-in walls would cement the claustrophobia and take away the temptation to stray, just a step, outside that silent sphere.

But neither of them knows where the chips are, or even if they're in the same places, and neither of them will risk the other's life for a quick jaunt around the pale and quiet sterility of the closed hospital wing that is their new home. It's a good place to hole up, even if their rations are dwindling (and boring, John will never eat graham crackers or drink Ensure again) and their supplies were scant to begin with.

Now the three rolls of gauze are divided carefully between them, dressing the shallow ricochet wound in Bruce's thigh, covering the thin layer of ointment on John's painfully abraded face and arms, the lucky marks of a man who's survived a fall from a moving car at speed. His finger is broken, and Bruce has splinted that; unfortunately, there is no morphine in their shelter.

Neither of them knows why the chips weren't detonated within that first terrified thirty minutes, but there's something terrible about coming that close to death, something that keeps them huddled in their shelter, a pair of shameful cowards afraid to cross a line for even a few seconds, even for the row of promising locked cabinets across the hall, even though they've been in this twenty-foot-diameter sphere (minus the two intersecting walls, minus the points near the edge where the curve of the circle means their heads might clip out of the sheltered area) for nine days.

This is, at this point they're just waiting; the information is out there, the coordinates Gordon will follow to root out the nest of hacker-terrorists, and from here it's just a game of chicken. Their enemies might have already pressed the detonate button, and- unable to spot the signal on their locators- have assumed they're dead and stopped monitoring them. Gordon might have burned them out; the sullen ambitious right-hand man might have seized the opportunity for a coup. They can't know. The disruptor will work for three weeks.

And yet, the first time John tries to cross the circle- because he's just a cop, a small price for Gotham compared to the Batman- there's a rustle of movement, a gasp of panic, a strong hand pulling him back to the tattered mattress they share. He tries once when he thinks Bruce is asleep; Bruce is not asleep, and despite the bruises that discolor his body and the crack in two of his ribs, he has John on the floor in a matter of moments.

"No," he says, and God help him, John hears things he knows in that voice, grief and fear of loss, sick dread, a soul so battered from tragedy and sacrifice that the death of one more man could break it entirely. So he lets Bruce guide him back to their mattress again, and they perform their evening ritual, searching each other for signs of the chip. John combs through Bruce's hair, peering at his scalp; Bruce re-bandages all of John's injuries, smearing on more ointment and probing gently to test the ravaged skin for tell-tale knots.

They do this several times a day, by the end of the second week; there's something comforting about it, even though they don't find anything, something soothing in the movement of hands over flesh, something bare and intimate in allowing the clinical touch of a curious finger. They have to check everything, everywhere: John examines Bruce's mouth, and this is how they have their first kiss, so careful and sad; Bruce wets a finger with saliva and checks John _inside_, and it feels so good that they don't stop. After that they fall asleep sweating on the defiled mattress, clinging to each other for warmth and to hear each other breathing, and Bruce whispers into John's ear: _I would keep you like this always, if I could._

__As John's wounds heal, the re-bandaging becomes less painful, though the gauze is by now absolutely filthy. After the second week, there's only once that it really hurts at all, when Bruce pauses for a moment over John's ribs and then there's a sharp pain in his side, a scab tearing off; but after this Bruce is even more gentle, and the skin heals cleanly. But the gash in Bruce's thigh, clean and almost cauterized when it was first made, picks up something foul from the filthy bandages, and begins to weep and turn pink.

And still they huddle in their shelter, the outside world oddly hissing quiet beyond the shell. They search for the chip, and they huddle together, trying not to count down their few remaining days, reminding each other that when the shell collapses they might be rescued, they might even live. There's a cold front, and their breath coalesces into fog as they lie twisted together, telling each other the truth.

John tells Bruce about his childhood, about what cold feels like when there's no money to run the furnace and no food to fill the belly and no blankets and no-one to curl up with unless you want to get your _stupid faggot ass beat_. He tells Bruce about learning to be alone, about keeping himself closed off from anyone who might have loved him, because he was afraid of what he might be, and Bruce wraps his hand around the back of John's head and holds him close, forehead to forehead, and whispers into his mouth: "You grew up too strong."

And Bruce tells John about Batman, about the kinds of horror and loss that can make a billionaire lock himself away, about the belly-burning regret that can drive a man to try and sacrifice himself for a city to make up for the others he's sacrificed, about the hope that he felt when he returned at last to find John sleeping in the Batcave, a last remaining ally against (and within) the dark.

John finally understands why they're being such cowards, why Bruce will tackle him and drag him back whenever he gets too close to the edge. He knows, now, that Bruce loves him, and that Bruce will die, will cease to exist, if he has to watch one more person he loves die like this. He knows that Bruce has dreams about the chip exploding in him: fire enveloping him, an explosion from within, a gout of flame that consumes him like a caress. It's not something he can risk, he realizes, and he wonders if he loves Bruce too.

Two days remain, and Bruce is sick, desperately sick. His leg is swollen to twice its normal size, hard to the touch, red and streaked and leaking pus, and he's feverish and sweating at once and he's starting to rave. John tries to get him to eat, washes his wounds with the hottest water that will come out of their single tap, and then sits on the edge of the mattress with his legs sprawled out, looking across the hall at the locked cabinets. They are medicine cabinets. They're probably empty, he knows, but there's a chance; the one drawer that he can see into, fallen open on the floor, has a single vial in it, unidentified. God only knows what's in the other cabinets.

"I'm going to go," says John at last. "Bruce, you're very, very sick. I'm not going to just sit here and watch you die."

"Don't go," says Bruce, hollow eyes staring with unbearable heat.

"I'll come back," says John. "I swear to God, I'll come back."

"I'll stop you," says Bruce, but they both know he can't get out of bed, so John helps him lie down on his side so that he can't see the medicine cabinet- if John dies, he doesn't want Bruce to see- and then he kisses Bruce, gently, on the forehead.

Then he kisses him on the mouth, and kisses him again, even though Bruce is so weak and feverish that his lips feel like paper under John's, and they lie like that- kissing, clutching, holding each other in desperation and fear and pain and illness- until Bruce is shaking with fever as well as with weeping, and John knows it's time.

He leaves Bruce on the mattress, too weak even to turn over, and he hates to deny him anything when they might both be dead in a matter of hours, but he's heard Bruce cry out during his sleep and he doesn't think he can bear for that sound to be the last thing he ever hears. He's going to have to make it fast; he doesn't know whether the signal is constantly broadcasting, or whether they have it on an automatic check every few minutes, or whether they're checking at all. He binds up his finger tight, to make his hands strong for bashing the cabinets, and he breathes, and he makes himself _not_ look at Bruce, because if he looks back from the edge of the circle he will be frozen in place forever.

Bruce is sobbing now: _don't go don't go don't go_, and then John goes. He throws himself out of the circle and hits the floor running and he's survived the first two seconds, he's survived ten seconds, he's at the cabinet doors and he's checking the vial- anti-nausea medication- and he's still alive, and he wants to yell that fact back to Bruce but he's afraid that his words will be cut off. There's a phone on the wall where he couldn't see it before, and he yanks the handset off and punches 9-1-1 and lets it fall; somebody will come soon enough. Then he's back to the drugs- the first cabinet door comes off and it's empty; the second door resists, and there are drugs inside, morphine and pills for fever, and he pockets them and he's still breathing, three minutes have passed and he's not dead yet.

The third door is hardest to open, and he pulls at it until he wrenches his injured finger and it gives way, and he falls to the floor in a heap. There, in front of his eyes, is a piece of plastic crusted with gore, a clear inch-long lozenge half-full of circuitry and half-full of yellow putty that his trained eyes recognize as plastic explosive and this, this is one of the chips, the tiny bombs that were put into them, and how did it get here?

While he watches it, paralyzed with shock, a timer runs down somewhere and the lozenge begins to flash, and he knows that his time is up. He's on his feet faster than he would have thought possible, with his hunger and his weakness and his injuries; then he's in the hall, and he realizes that if this is Bruce's chip, John's will detonate soon too, and he can't bring that fiery death back to Bruce.

So he throws himself down the hall, and there is a sound like all the air being punched out of existence and then a sickening ringing hum, and John is still _still_ alive, and that must have been his chip. He remembers Bruce bandaging him, the pause, the sharp pain; and as he limps back to the mattress, hearing the beginning sounds of footsteps and shouting in the distance, he sees that Bruce is still breathing, fast and shallow.

It almost doesn't matter. The thing that John has been trying so hard, these past few months, to protect until it has a chance to heal- the fearless spirit, the man who can love and be loved in return- that thing is already broken. The shell was a haven for Bruce, a prison not only for him but for his last and lone beloved, and Bruce (strong, beautiful Bruce, defiant survivor) had come at last to the end of his sacrifice and found the one thing he would deceive and suffer and die to avoid.

There's no way to know who's coming, help or huntsmen, but they're closer now. John could run, now that he has no chip; he could have saved them both before, if Bruce had told him. But he knows now that death is not what Bruce fears. He's empty-handed, but that doesn't matter; soon they'll have professional help, or they'll be past all help, whether he goes or stays.

"I'm back," says John, and lays his shaking body down to curl around Bruce's burning naked frame.

"I heard it," says Bruce. "I told you not to go."

"I'm fine, Bruce. I'm back."

"Promise me you'll stay with me until I'm dead," says Bruce, and John wraps his arms around him, hearing voices in the hall now, and he promises.


End file.
